The Science Reference Library of the National Archives of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia was founded in 1926. Scientists – Sargis Kakabadze, Alexandre Trsereteli, Simon Esadze, Victor Brose and others contributed the establishment and further development of the library. The main source of book fonds was the Russian Empire and the printed materials, submitted together with written documents from the liquidated institutions of the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

Also the unique books and periodicals, discovered in churches and monasteries of Georgia or separate families, was stored in depository. In 2010 rare books and periodicals of the library (IML) of Georgia’s Branch of former Moscow Marxism-Leninism Institute joined the fonds.

At various times the library was named: Academic Library of Central Archive, Academic Library of Central Archive of printed works, Scientific Library of Central Archives of Georgia. The first employees of the Library were: M. Tumanishvili – library manager, V. Brose, Vl. Elnitski, E. Khosroshvili, N. Khoshtaria.

Scientific-reference literature of all fields in Georgian, Russian, English, French, German and other languages are preserved at the repositories of the library. Currently, the library holds about 80 000 unites of books and nearly 50 000 numbers of periodicals.

The library also stores the collection of old printed books that was created from the literature obtained after the expedition in 20s-30s. It represents the liturgical and secular books edited in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Constantinople, Rome and other cities in 1647-1900. Its quantity amounts to 492 unite. Literature of almost all the fields of science is collected in Scientific-Reference Library.
The researchers can use unique materials that cover the historical documents of Caucasus and Georgia of the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 60s of the 19th centuries. The earliest newspaper edited in Tbilisi is “Tbilisis Utskebani” (“Tbilisi Apprise”) – 1828-1832; among the Georgian journals – “Tsiskari” – 1852. Cartographical fonds are also very important. They depict the administrative-territorial unites of Caucasus of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

The staff and the researchers can use the unique fonds, preserved at the repository of the library.
The readers can make the copies, scanned versions of the fonds etc. (service tariff, the fee liberation and privilege rules are established according to the annex of the law of Georgia “About the National Archival Fonds and the National Archives”. See the link). Also they can order the information about the needed media online, after filling the specific application (question to the library).

The library has an alphabetical, systematic, subject, as well as maps, chronological catalog of Russian-language fonds, journals and newspapers card index. Medias are stored according to universal decimal classification.